Thomas Wingfold, Curate

Republished in modern times as "The Curate's Awakening". A young man (Thomas Wingfold) "enters the church" through no real faith and only for want of something to do. After an encounter with a brash young atheist, he is thrown into an emotional, spiritual, and vocational crisis. Through his own doubts and through developing clarity gained from the counsel of a singular friend, he begins a slow journey toward faith, or - as he would put it - "a lovely hope."

A swift, gray November wind had taken every chimney of the house for an organ pipe, and was roaring in them all at once, quelling the more distant and varied noises of the woods, which moaned and surged like a sea. Helen Lingard had not been out all day. The morning, indeed, had been fine, but she had been writing a long letter to her brother Leopold at Cambridge, and had put off her walk in the neighbouring park till after luncheon, and in the meantime the wind had risen, and brought with it a haze that threatened rain. She was in admirable health, had never had a day's illness in her life, was hardly more afraid of getting wet than a young farmer, and enjoyed wind, especially when she was on horseback. Yet as she stood looking from her window, across a balcony where shivered more than one autumnal plant that ought to have been removed a week ago, out upon the old fashioned garden and meadows beyond, where each lonely tree bowed with drifting garments I was going to say, like a suppliant, but it was AWAY from its storming enemy she did not feel inclined to go out... Continue reading book >>